162

A MURCIAN INN.

where horses were stabled in the cloisters below, and wide stone stair-cases led to the rooms occupied by the family and their guests above. As we entered, we heard the tinkling of a guitar and the clatter of castanets, and saw in a vaulted recess, on the ground floor, half a dozen people sitting on benches, one of whom, a young man, was playing, while before him a young fellow and a little girl were dancing. We got a great, dreary, chilly room, with one large window looking out upon the old court of the convent, and two deep alcoves containing enormous wide beds of straw, resting on huge bedsteads of beam and plank, the work of some coarse carpenter; perhaps they were the same on which the bulky friars, the former inmates of the place, had slept. A strapping Murcian woman, loud-voiced and impudent, and always talking, laid the sheets for us, assisted by a younger maiden, little, pretty, and quiet. For our evening meal we got a tolerable soup, but it was with great difficulty that we prevented it from being flavored with garlic. The elder waiting woman tossed her head, and expressed her scorn very freely when we gave repeated orders to dispense with the favorite condiment of her country; but we got the soup without garlic, notwithstanding. The greatest difficulty we had was in obtaining a sufficient supply of water for our morning ablutions. A single large washbowl, half filled with water, was placed on a stand in the corner of the great room, and this was expected to serve for us all. We called for more water, and a jar was brought in, from which the washbowl was filled to the brim. We explained that each

SCARCITY OF WATER.

163

one of us wanted a separate quantity of pure water, but the stout waiting-woman had no idea of conforming to our outlandish notions, and declined doing any thing more for us. It was only after an appeal to the landlady, that a queer Murcian pitcher, looking like a sort of sky-rocket, with two handles, five spouts, and a foot so small that it could hardly stand by itself, was brought in, and for greater security made to lean against the wall in the corner of the room.

164

GETTING OUT OF VILLENA.

LETTER XV.

A JOURNEY FROM MADRID TO ALICANTE-CONCLUDED.

CARTAGENA, November 29, 1857.

Ar an early hour the next morning the muleteers were reloading their beasts among the arches of the cloisters, where they had been fed, and at half-past five o'clock we set out among them. We had made our way to the inn with perfect ease the night before, and one of our party had remarked upon this to the driver. "You will find Villena a

bad place to get out of," was his answer, and so it proved, for I do not remember ever to have been conveyed, in the night, through streets so crooked, narrow and miry. A man had been engaged to keep beside the horses, and guide them at the sudden turns of the streets, but even this precaution did not seem enough. There was not a lamp in the streets, and only a dim starlight in the sky; but luckily, an end of candle was found in the carriage, which, being lighted, helped to show the way. Several times the horses stopped, and required a great deal of encouragement from the driver before they would attempt to draw us out of the sloughs into which we had plunged. Once they turned suddenly about, jerking round the carrito in a very narrow passage, with an evident design to return to their stable. At length, after a

series of marvellous escapes from being overturned or dashed against the walls of the houses, we reached the Queen's highway in safety, and extinguished our light.

With a passable road, and a better carriage, this day's journey would have been delightful. When the sun rose we found ourselves in a picturesque country, bordering a little stream, the Segura, I believe, and here lay the town of Sax on the side of a hill, which towered above it—a high rock, full of yawning holes and caverns, and crowned with an old abandoned castle. We did not enter, but left it a little way off on our right, basking in the sunshine of a pleasant morning. It rang with the incessant cackling of hens, the cries of children, and the shrill voices of women. Craggy mountain summits all around us kept watch over smooth valleys, and along the huerta which bordered the stream, the peasants were cutting and carrying home the fresh stalks of the maize, which had been sown for fodder. Beside the road were green fields of the Windsor bean and trefoil-the trefoil which is so tender, juicy and brittle in its winter growth, that, as I remember, in Egypt it is often eaten as a salad.

The road, however, seemed to grow worse as the country became more worth looking at; the mire was deeper, and the way marked with deeper furrows by the wheels of the heavy galeras. The day before we had discovered that our driver had an unlucky knack of locking the wheels of his cart with those of the other vehicles he met, and once or twice had caused our baggage to scrape in a most perilous manner against their muddy wheels. He was now to show

us that his accomplishments went further than this. I had taken a long walk of two or three hours that morning, for it was an easy feat to keep pace with our horses in walking; and now, in approaching the town of Elda, the ladies of our party had become so fatigued with the incessant jolting they had endured, that they dismounted, and picked their way on foot by the side of the road. Our carrito had entered the town of Elda, the driver walking beside his horses, when, as it turned a corner, the right wheel striking against the check stone and rising over it, overturned the vehicle with all the baggage, bringing the wheel-horse to the ground. When we came up with our driver, he was looking ruefully at what he had done, and apparently meditating what he should do next. He soon had plenty of advisers and assistants; and leaving our courier with him to see to our baggage, we withdrew from the crowd that were gathering about us and staring at us most unmercifully, and followed a by-street leading round a corner of the town to where the main road again issued into the fields. Here, while waiting for our carrito, we had a good opportunity to observe the situation of Elda. It lies in a rich plain, among mountains; a few date palms, the first we had seen in Spain, rising above the houses and all the other trees, give the place a tropical aspect. We had been made sensible all the morning that we had entered within the bounds of a more genial climate than that of Madrid. The air was like that of early June with us, and there was never a softer or pleasanter sunshine than that which shone about us.